


take your bones apart and put em back together (tell your mama you're somebody new)

by okayantigone



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Animal Death, Assassins & Hitmen, Child Abuse, F/M, Gen, M/M, PTSD, Past Abuse, Trauma, Trauma Recovery, animal cruelty, modern au-ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-10-23 08:41:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17680166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: ever since he walked into illumi's life, hisoka was aware of the zoldyck family dramatics, or, as his favorite brother-in-law had once put it "the histrionics here never end".now he has to deal with the tragedy of the family in three acts, and maintain his as-ever loose grip on sanity. oh. and attempt to parent killua, apparently. since they're legally related and all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is a story that will be updated on an irregular basis, as i work on it  
> i'm super excited for it, hisoka and illumi are husbands in love

hisoka relishes the freedom of being able to take a shower under the tropical steam he had installed in their bathroom, just weeks prior to his arrest. he turns the water at hot as it will go, his skin flaring as red as his hair under the beat of the spray hitting him from several angles, and their marble bathroom fills up with steam quickly, fogging up the glass doors of the shower cabin, and clawing spiderlike finery along their mirrors.   
  
the bathroom door is open into the master bedroom, an invitation, should his husband come back to the apartment before he is done showering. he could happily spend a few hours under the water, realigning his chakras so to speak, reaquinting himself with the routines that had been second nature prior to his imprisonment. he can take his time again, and bask in the rich heavy scents of the designer skin and hair care illumi had gotten him hooked on, the matching branded shampoos and conditioners and soaps that he got every christmas without fail from his grandfather.

 

even the routine insanity that was the zoldyck family was now tinged in nostalgia. there had been only so much for him to do, trapped between the four walls of his solitary confinement cell, and there was an itch beneath his skin, for _chaos._

 

news of his release would have spread already. he is torn between wishing illumi would get home already so they could… _reaquiant,_ and hoping danchou will call him for a job. for _anything._

it didn’t really rankle him that illumi wasn’t home to greet him. he and illumi had never been the kind of couple for a tearful airport reunion. he didn’t need a jittery housewife. he needed an _equal._ it had been a nice thought of his beloved to send a car to pick him up though.

 

they had always been their own people, independently of each other, capable of existing for months apart, and then just as seamlessly bleeding into each other’s spaces, sometimes even literally. knowing illumi was like knowing himself, being aware of illumi was like being aware of himself, and he’d lost the knowledge of where he ended, and his lover began long before the rushed wedding, and hastily exchanged vows that would ensure illumi could keep communicating with him in prison.

 

_dear, i am wanted urgently at home. kill-chan has taken off to god knows where and mother is, understandably, in hysterics. i will return home as soon as i have handled the situation, and i will see you then. _

the note was written in illumi’s elegantly sprawling longhand, the word “will” underlined several times, which was as much emotion as his doll was capable of putting out in clear expression. he’d taken out a clean sheet of paper to write it on, and he’d been pressing the pen down hard, his strokes angry and impatient. hisoka knew this well. he pressed the paper to his lips, breathed in the faint nothingness illumi always left behind, leaving as he did, each room a little colder than before he’d went in.

 

then he’d gone straight for the shower. whatever teenage rebellion was rocking through his favorite little brother-in-law couldn’t possibly take that long to resolve. could it?

 

when the heat started tapering off, he knew it was time to leave the comfort of the shower, and he stepped out on the wet tiles, leaving little puddles behind as he grabbed illumi’s monogrammed towel to wrap around himself warmly. further down in the apartment the phone was ringing, shrill and incessant. whoever it was could wait.

 

he padded to the closet, and let himself luxuriate once again in being able to chose his clothes, settling for one of illumi’s threadbare sleep shirts, that were actually hisoka’s own old shirts, kept for no sentimental reason beyond their softness.

 

the phone was ringing still, the world’s least pleasant soundtrack.

 

he found hastily wrapped spring rolls in the fridge, and dug in standing barefoot over the sink, looking at the cream wall, and gleaming, polished metal. no one would guess how much blood he and illumi had washed down that drain from cooking and working both.

 

the phone went blissfully silent for one long, drawn out momeny, before the piercing screech of the message machine.

 

“ _you have reached the zoldyck-morrow residence, we cannot reach the phone now, please leave a message.”_

illumi must have recorded their new voicemail on his own, his voice smooth and flat as his dulcent tones glided into the open spaces of their house.

 

the message before had been a quick, chaotic mess, put together between breathless kisses,

 

“you have reached the residence – of illumi zoldyck”

 

“ – and hisoka morrow”

 

“we cannot get to the phone right now

 

“because we are busy and important”

 

“so please leave a message.”

 

shortly after the beep, illumi had collapsed in a fit of silent laughter against hisoka’s neck, his shoulder shaking prettily. he did everything quiet, with an unfamiliarity that was at once disarmingly charming.

 

the new message was alright, but they’d have to record a new one, now that he was finally home. he shoves the remnants of the spring roll into his mouth, and crosses into their spacious living room, to hear out whatever it is danchou wants from him so soon.

 

“hisoka morrow, your presence is urgently required at st. panteleimon hospital. this is officer melody fahn from the 47th precinct – “

 

he swallows so quickly he’s sure he will choke, and grapples for the old-fashioned phone handle.

 

“i’m here, don’t hang up –“

 

“sir,” officer melody has a nice voice, very soothing. the kind of voice that’s perfect for delivering bad news. “i have been trying to get a hold of you – “

 

“who’s in the hospital,” he interrupts. there’s a limited number of people who’d need him in a hospital. he’s definitely at the bottom of chrollo’s list for contacts, and illumi is more than capable of handling himself. maybe it’s killua, and he’s trying to avoid the inevitable confrontation, which – fair enough.

 

he’s not prone to panic or worry, he doesn’t think. but the intrinsic urgency of the words “hospital” and “officer” combined –

 

“sir,” says melody again. he wishes she’d stop with the honorifics. the rational part of him already has intuited the conclusion of this conversation. she isn’t talking like a cop to a felon. so he already knows. condolences read in her sweet tones. “i am terribly sorry.”

 

he stands under the fluorescent lights in st. panteleimon’s. the walls are white, and the light of the buzzing lamp bounces off them, terrible and disgusting, blinding him. he stares straight ahead at the gleaming slab.   
  
“that – “ his voice doesn’t come out right. “that’s him – that sure is him, officer,” a hysteric laughter bubbles up his throat.

 

the body on the slab is burned near beyond recognition. that soft supple body he had known and loved, the delicate engagement ring _melted_ into the bone of a delicate finger, those deadly hands still with fire.

 

the height is right, certainly, and the weight. but the ring – it’s the ring. it’s the one he gave illumi, that’s for sure.   
  
“when the dental records – “ says the mortician. she had said her name. it had to do with colors, for sure. he can’t look away from illumi.

 

“yes,” hisoka interrupts. “yes.”

 

“sir, we need you to identify the others.” she says, not kindly.

 

“the – “

 

“the rest of the family.” she clarifies. “didn’t melody explain?”

 

maybe she had. he’d stopped listening pretty much as soon as illumi’s name came into the same sentence as “body”. he’d filled out the rest of the context, and now

 

“the – family.” his voice sounds flat. he doesn’t feel flat. he feels… something.

 

“yes,” says the mortician with the color name.

 

“the whole family.” he repeats. he’s trying to wrap his head around it.

 

“maybe i’m not the best person to – “ he begins, and then stops. “are there any –“ _survivors._

if there were, wouldn’t they be here instead of him?

 

in the adjacent room, he can easily recognize the other bodies. they’re in a better state than illumi. maybe illumi had fought the longest, made himself into the biggest problem. kikyo is cold and empty, much like she’d been to him in life. silva’s bulk looks somehow smaller, sagging with the death. there’s milluki – his face is almost completely bashed in. little kalluto – it’s hard to tell what killed him – it would make for an interesting study. what takes out a twelve year old? zeno and maha are difficult to tell apart from each other, with all the damage, and grandma hasn’t fared much better.

 

_exterminated with extreme prejudice,_ hisoka thinks.

 

another hysterical laugh works its way out of his chest. someone was very, very clever. hisoka was still _in prison._ sometime between the time kikyo had called illumi in hysterics, and at any point after illumi left their apartment to go back home, someone had taken them all out. it was impossible to tell when illumi had actually left the house. maybe he’d been gone the whole day. how soon had officer melody discovered the crime scene? _how_ had she discovered the crime scene?

 

and _killua_. where is _killua?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where had killua been this whole time?   
> also, hisoka is introduced to the concept of grief.

the zoldyck manor is dark and quiet. he steps over the corpses of their guard dogs, the stilettos of his boots sinking into the blood-matted mud as he gracefully ducks under the yellow police tape. officer melody had given him a ride in her cruiser. it feld weird to be in a police car without handcuffs on. he focused on the weirdness.

 

the house loomed over him, shadowy, impenetrable – until now – and its hollow black-lit windows offered no answers. he climbed up the marble stairs, and stood in the destroyed anteroom, looking around all the smashed opulence. the chandelier, shattered on the floor, splattered with blood. nail marks on the walls. pools of blood. the chalk outlines of the bodies. in his mind’s eye, he could envision the fight quite easily. the butlers, killed where they stood. the family, slowly and methodically taken out.

 

the kitchen is where the smell of fire and smoke came from. he wants to go there.

 

the flash of a crime scene photographer blinds him. he flinches right into a puul of blood. it’s thick, already drying, and clings in clumps to the pink suede of his sharp-nosed shoes. he walks to the kitchen at a brisk pace, his heels clicking rhythmically over the ruined marble.

 

this is where illumi died. the chalk outline followed the outline of ash and smoke where hisbody had fallen. some creative, clever soul had utilized the gas stove as a weapon. how ingenious. how innovative.

 

one of the cops has left the door to the sprawling gardens empty. someone has thrown up in kikyo’s flower beds. probably the same cop. hisoka kind of wants to do that too, the spring rolls coming up in his throat.

 

kalluto made it farthest. his small steps are still in the grass, dwarfed by the shit-kicking boots of whoever had gone after him. they’ve outlined his little body with more yellow tape, since they can’t use chalk on grass. maybe he was going to hide in the surrounding forest. maybe he was going to call for help. poor little kalluto, wich his penchant for girl’s clothes and origami. hisoka would never secretly slip him little tubes of lipstick and eyeliner again.

 

he would never do a whole lot of things again.

 

he looks out into the forest until his eyes blur. the cold seeps into his skin. he’s still only wearing the sleep shirt and his boots. he’d barely thought to throw on shorts before running out the door, after his call with officer melody. when he can no longer clench his teeth hard enough to stop their chattering, he turns around and meanders back into the darkened house. he does everything mechanical. takes his shoes off, and just throws them in the trash, walks barefoot through the kitchen, across the dining room, with the table for thirty people, split cleanly in half, and then across the foyer. the crystal from the chandelier cuts his feet up. he leaves bloody footprints on his way to the living room. maybe he’s messing up the crime scene, but he doesn’t care. they should be done processing it already.

 

zeno’s bar is fully stocked with the good russian vodka, and he helps himself to a glass, then takes the whole fucking bottle. the fireplace is not yet dead. someone used the poker as a weapon. he hopes it was grandma zoldyck. he hopes she made those motherfuckers _hurt._

 

he perches on top of the overturned sofa with his vodka, and stares into the embers. around him, the detectives finish up. the house dies around him. if anyone speaks to him, he’s not sure he responds. the only reason he’s not a suspect is because he literally got out of prison today. the only reason he’s not a suspect is because by the time illumi’s driver had deposited him in front of their apartment building, everyone was already dead. the driver called the cops.

 

hisoka would bet anything that he’d die in protective custody. or kill himself. or something. he’d be a loose end and someone would tie it.

 

_where is killua?_

maybe he’s dead too. maybe whoever did this found him, and bashed his pretty wide head in. they had to have been staking the house out. maybe he just served them an opportunity on a platter. he would have put up a fight, for sure.

 

he’ll have to call the hospital where alluka is. he’s the only one left to do that. he’ll have to do that in the morning. or maybe by then they’ll get her too. she’d have a very tiny corpse. she’d have a very tiny coffin. like kalluto. or maybe he can have one big coffin, for her and kalluto both.

 

because he’d have to organize the funeral. because no one else was left.

 

illumi often talked about _family._ hisoka didn’t understand. illumi talked about family, with tears sliding down his pale bruised face, with his arms covered in scratches from the only other person in his life who manicured their nails. he wore his mother’s love on his sleeve, and spoke about _family_ like the word had any meaning to hisoka.

 

“when we get married, you’ll become a part of my family,” he’d say, his dark eyes gleaming. he’d look almost happy. excited. “you’ll join us for new year’s eve, when we go to the house in the country, and grandfather always puts a firework display in the garden.”

 

he’d say it with such absolute confidence.

 

“what if i want to spend new year’s alone. with you?”

 

illumi would give him big, confused eyes. “but,” he’d say, as though some part of his programming was failing, unable to produce a proper response. “it’s _tradition.”_

illumi loved his family. loved their _tradition._ took pride in it. and now it had killed him.

 

_mother is, understandably, in hysterics_

 

poor silly little illumi-chan. his poor, silly little love. of course he’d rushed home. to comfort his mother, when she screamed and agonized over her beloved middle child. illumi had never been her favorite, or her more beloved, never merited the histrionics that surrounded his younger siblings, and yet he was home. had rushed home. to her.

 

had she slapped him in her anger? had she somehow been able to find ways to blame killua’s behavior on illumi? had she listed all the minute flaws illumi simply didn’t possess in hisoka’s eyes? had her last words to her eldest been cruel?

 

probably. probably, because they always were. because killua kept running away, and then illumi kept coming back to the apartment bruised. and this time. well, he hadn’t come back, had he?

 

maybe killua was alive, somewhere. maybe he’d escaped for good, and would never come back, and never find out about this. at least someone had to get out alive. he had to call alluka’s hospital, because there was no one else left. maybe she was already dead.

 

how would he explain it to alluka? that she didn’t have any brothers anymore? did she even remember them? did she remember anything on the other side of the walls that kept her safe from the world, and the world safe from her? maybe she was already dead, and then he wouldn’t have to bother.

 

he could leave here tomorrow, and find out who did this. yes, yes. he’d wait until tomorrow. maybe if killua was alive, he’d come back. he shouldn’t come back to the house like this, empty. it wouldn’t be fair. even though hisoka had.

 

“killua shouldn’t have to live like this,” illumi always said. “it isn’t fair.”

 

hisoka would tuck his hair behind his ear. “but you did.”

 

illumi would always tilt his head, confused. what did that have to do with anything? killua was important, you see.

 

he can’t believe zeno has been holding on the good vodka on him like that. he hits the jackpot with the fourth bottle, which is way in the bottom left, behind kikyo’s favorite fig liquor.

he’s given up on the glass, and just started necking the drink now. it burns going down. everything burns now. an irrational bout of laughter escapes him. everything burns. like illumi.

 

dawn peeks behind the tall french windows, pinkish light grazing the frosted glass. after they announced the engagement, kikyo had gone off the deep end redecorating to deal with illumi’s decision to permanently move himself into the apartment, even though he’d already been living there for a year.

 

she was especially proud of the living room windows, which opened into the front porch, and the garden with the poisonous orchids. whatever her shortcomings, that woman definitely had an eye for design.

 

“hisoka?”

 

the voice startles him. he turns around, sluggish. he’s drunk. killua’s sharp frame is distorted by the fuzziness of drink. not dead after all.

 

“hello little zoldyck,” he says, and lifts his bottle in greeting. he enunciates his words carefully. illumi hates his slurring. _hated._ he forces his facial features to approximate a smile.

 

“what happened here?” killua asks. “where is everyone?”

 

hisoka isn’t sure he can answer properly. he starts to speak, but all that makes it out of his mouth is laughter. he laughs. that’s not right. he’s not laughing, is he? it’s not funny. but he isn’t sure what the sound he’s making is, if not laughter. there’s tears coming out of his eyes, from laughing too hard. he’s laughing, right?

 

“hisoka?” killua repeats. his voice is a little harder. he’s taken a step back, clever boy. preparing to flee or strike. “you’re scaring me,” he says it levelly. he’s not saying it because it’s true. he’s probably saying it because it fits the situation. illumi did that, a lot. he watched lots and lots of stupid television, to pick up phrases and social cues, and then said them when it was appropriate. oh, his clever little love. clever little killua-chan.

 

he holds his hands up in a universal peace gesture, and loses his grip on the bottle. it shatters on kikyo’s pristine hardwood floors, which aren’t pristine anymore, because someone took milluki’s skull and repeatedly smashed him into the lacquered surface, a few feet away from where killua is standing.

 

the weird noises he’s making die off, but his shoulders are still shaking, and he’s still crying. his mouth is curved into a smile, and he can’t make it stop doing that. he’s still smiling when he says “everyone’s gone.” that’s not quite right. he tries again. “everyone’s in st panteleimon hospital.” there. that sounds better.

 

killua’s skinny shoulders relax. “is someone hurt? did mother go in one of her fits again?”

 

hisoka stops smiling. his expression reverses ito a frown. no, no. that’s wrong. that’s definitely wrong.

 

“no one’s hurt,” he says. killua relaxes more and looks confused still. hisoka isn’t explaining it right. he can’t seem to make the words make sense.

 

“you’re drunk,” killua observes flatly. smart little zoldyck.

 

hisoka rewards him with a brilliant smile. “yeah!”

 

“why?” killua asks, suspiciously, casting his eye over the room. he looks like his father when he’s frowning. he eyes the chalk outline of milluki’s body. “why are you drunk, hisoka?” he repeats.

 

hisoka’s smile seems to operate on a light switch, because it’s gone again, and now who’s frowning.

 

“i was…” he pauses. “i’m not… too sure. i think i was…hm. no. i think i wasn’t.”

“weren’t what?” killua’s relaxed his defensive stance, but still isn’t approaching him.

 

“wasn’t… good?” hisoka says. it’s an illumi-ism. his poor dove. he had such an inability to understand emotions. he was either feeling good, or not good.

 

_“how do you feel with me, doll?” hisoka had asked. illumi had let his eyes flutter shut, a thoughtful expression settling over his perfect features._

_“good,” he’d said, after a long time of thinking. “with you, i feel good.” he’d smiled, uncertain, a question in his voice. he knew hisoka loved him. hisoka had said it so many times. maybe one day illumi would be confident enough in his grasp of feelings to say it back._  
  
“that makes me feel happy, my dove,” hisoka said, and then offhandedly, like an especially patient tutor, added “happy is a god feeling. it’s warm, like a hug.” 

_illumi had flushed, wrapped those long slender arms around him, and hid his face in his neck. “don’t condescend me,” he’d hissed in hisoka’s ear. “i know what happy feels like.” then, after a beat. “i know, because you’re why.”_

_and for once, hisoka had been too stunned to say anything back._

killua’s a clever little boy. probably the cleverest of them all, he just lacks the life experience. he’s looking around, gathering clues. probably, in his heart of hearts he already knows exactly what happened. probably, he already has all the answers. but he won’s accept it, until he hears it confirmed, and hisoka isn’t sure he has the words to tell him.

 

“hisoka,” killua says again, using his name like a spell. “why weren’t you good? why are you drunk? what is everyone doing at the hospital?”

 

“i’m not good,” hisoka begins. there. there, you have to tell him. tell the clever little zoldyck. “because illumi’s … he’s burned.” he says helplessly. his arms relax, swinging uselessly at his sides. “and i came here to drink. after the hospital.”

 

killua studies him with narrowed eyes and waits.

 

“i was in the hospital, because i had to tell officer melody who.” there. that should do it.

 

“who…?” killua prompted carefully.

 

hisoka looks at him like he’s an idiot. “who the bodies were. because illumi is burned.”

 

something like understanding flashes across killua’s pale face. in a few years, he may grow up to look a lot like silva indeed. hisoka better save some pictures, for comparison. because silva isn’t going to be around.

 

“hisoka,” killua’s voice has that same careful emptiness illumi’s often did, when they had first started dancing around each other. “illumi isn’t dead… is he?”

 

hisoka’s broken smile in response is the ugliest thing he has ever seen. he should have known, with the police tape. with the chandelier. with the blood. with the chalk on the floor. should have known when he followed the bloody footprints into the living room. should have known, when hisoka’s face, bare of paint, turned to him, his hair hanging limp around it.

 

because if illumi was still alive… would hisoka be drinking alone, in their ruined house?

 

“hisoka. where are my parents?” again, that horrible, ruined smile, that he wants to claw off hisoka’s face.

 

“i told you, little zoldyck. everyone’s in the hospital. and i had to tell officer melody who the bodies were. and then i came here.”

 

every sentence feels like a physical punch to the throat, in that it renders him unable to breath. one moment he’s standing up. the next, he’s on his knees. he feels the impact.

 

“why?” killua asks, finally. he’s not sure what he’s asking for. why his family? why now? why are they dead? blood pounds in his ears, and all he can think of is that illumi is dead. illumi is dead. that big chalk circle is either a demon summoning ritual, or milluki’s outline. his grandfather is dead, because alive he’d never let hisoka loose on his good liquor. his mother is dead, because she isn’t here wailing about illumi being dead. his father is dead, because if someone got to illumi, then they must have gone through his father.

 

yesterday, his mother had been in her usual hysterical meltdown, this time about illumi’s refusal to divorce hisoka while he was in prison for murder, and then, over illumi making plans to celebrate hisoka’s return from prison like it was a good thing, like they hadn’t been disgustingly in love for years. illumi hadn’t even been at home, so she’d been ranting at whoever cared to listen, slamming down the good china plates, and heaping abuse on milluki for his weight, warning him that if he didn’t change up, no one would ever love him, and he’d end up with someone like hisoka. and he’d wanted her to stop. he had wanted, so bad, for her to stop, because illumi’s eyes filled up with quiet smiles whenever hisoka was brought up, and his mother’s hate seeped into every single good thing any one of them brought home, and all their father did was look on like it was normal. so he’d done what he always did, and vaulted over the garden wall, and taken the bus to gon’s.

 

illumi had been excited to see hisoka again, after nearly a year. the punctuation in his texts was more upbeat than usual, less fullstops, and more elipses, inviting conversation.

 

he had missed his magician husband. now illumi was dead, and hisoka was drinking grandpa’s good vodka, which wasn’t actually his good vodka, because he and milluki had split it for his birthday the year before, and replaced it with the leftover homebrew moonshine one of milluki’s online friends had sent, after they split the majority of that too. they’d spent the entire next day throwing up, and pretending that milluki was teaching killua some of his hacking skills, so they could have an excuse not to leave milluki’s bed. illumi had remembered killua’s birthday too, and sent him an emoji at midnight. it was a clownface emoji, a cake emoji, and then a smiling man emoji. illumi and hisoka were thinking of him on his birthday.

 

hisoka was drinking the moonshine. hisoka was drunk, in the house. why, killua wanted to know. why this, and why now, and why him.

 

“illumi-chan would have been terribly disappointed otherwise,” hisoka says, and that awful hysterical laugh bubbles up again. killua can’t stand the sound of him laughing like this. his stomach lurches, and he barely manages to avert his head and vomit mito’s delicious home cooking somewhere other than on hisoka’s bare feet. the heaving brings tears to his eyes. and when he starts crying, he can’t stop. next to him, standing by sheer force of will, hisoka is still laughing shrilly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hisoka and killua attempting to reconcile with their new situation, and the secret lives of the zoldyck children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally this was meant to be the funeral chapter, but i've decided to split it in two, and the funeral will be in the next chapter

the morning of the funeral is bright-sunned, clear-skied, insultingly crisp and clear, the air itself trembling with crystal quality, as though the zoldyck butlers had descended from the heavens to dust and polish the sky for their masters’ final journey.

 

killua had disappeared off to wherever it was that killua disappeared off to when he ran away from him, and hisoka hadn’t had the heart to tell him off for it, when he wasn’t entirely sure himself, exactly why children weren’t just supposed to go wherever they damn well pleased. that there was someone out there who’d wiped out his entire family didn’t really seem to strike the appropriate note of fear in him. that they hadn’t actually tried to come back for him or hunt him down had made him cocky, on the second day after.

 

he moved through the manor like shadow, quieter and more inobtrusive than the remaining, still-alive butlers, the ones who had been on errands and out of the house at the time of the –

 

well. hisoka could still sense his presence, make out his movement. a few more years, and he’d be as quiet and undetectable as illumi had –

 

“don’t forget it’s tomorrow,” he called after the open window, the breeze blowing the lace curtains, just a light disturbance. he was working his way through zeno’s good vodka, and milluki’s foreign-friends procured moonshine at an alarming speed. _after tomorrow,_ he thought to himself. when illumi was in the ground, then he’d stop.

 

there was no response from the open dusk of the expansive yard. he went through the motions of picking after himself, and letting the girl-butler – the small dark-skinned one -to lock up the house around him.

 

it wasn’t his house. he wasn’t going to sleep in it. if he did, maybe kikyou would claw her way out of the aluminum lockers of the mortuary specifically for the purpose of kicking him out. he didn’t feel any better in the apartment.

 

it wasn’t _his_ apartment either. it was _his_ and _illumi’s._ was. had been. now there was half of the closet he couldn’t use or look at, and a kitchen cabinet full of domestic poisons that would never get sprinkled lovingly into a _world’s best husband_ coffee mug “to build your tolerance, hisoka”. he’d tried to sleep on the bed, but it was too soft. the mattress, like a marshmallow beneath him, where he could just sink, the pillows too big and full, so he’d dragged the duvet with him and slept on the ground.

 

and the morning of the funeral was insultingly bright, sunbeams coming in through the window and punching him square in the face to force him awake.

 

and so he takes a shower, luxuriates in the warm water, the bathroom door open into the apartment, an invitation, a dare, _try to come for me too, motherfuckers_.

 

he stands in front of the mirror, a towel wrapped around his hips, and wrings the water out of his hair. the red was dull, having faded to his more natural mahogany, rather than the crimson he faded. he’d have to touch it up. maybe after. or maybe go for a different color. mint blue? he’d been a mint blue when illumi first met him. he pulls the monogramed towel from the cabinet  under the sink and drags it through his hair, wringing the water out. he misses illumi in a visceral way, like missing a limb, and this time machi can’t fix it.

 

_like most of the things hisoka does, it comes spontaneously, when he and illumi are both blood splattered, wringing river water out of their clothes and hair, with the moonlight quiet on illumi's pale, delicately scarred back, and hisoka's blood pounding in his head with the thrill of the kill._

_"you know, i love you." he says, blurts it out, really, the words escaping his mouth so fast they damn near knock his teeth out from behind. he says it with a huge smile, which tugs at the bruised side of his face where he'd taken a punch earlier, and waits with abated breath._

_illumi is a ghost of black and white, his hair almost down to his hips limp with moisture._

_he turns to face hisoka fully, and blinks those impossibly big eyes at him._

_"oh?" he raises a finger to his mouth, his head tilting, bird-like to the side. everything he does is so damn delicate. his eyes crinkle, which is his version of a smile, while the rest of his face remains flat and impassive. "that's nice," he says, his voice as full of air as usual._

_hisoka accepts the peculiarity of the answer, as he does the rest of illumi's weirdness, in stride. unlike him, illumi is a poorly socialized little thing, more doll than person, really. he supposes it's as much of a response as he'll get, and it's certainly better than outright rejection._

_gracefully, in a single languid movement, illumi dunks his entire body in the water, and emerges a few feet away, standing up, beautiful and naked, to wring his hair out of the blood that was matting the ends._

_"i apologise if my reaction is uncouth," he says, reverting to the sweet formal lilt that's been beaten into him. "i don't think i've ever been loved before," his eyes are oh, so big and full of the stars reflecting in them, questions and curiosity reading in every line of his body._ did i do it right? _he seems to ask, always begging for the scrap of encouragement hisoka has learned to read in all the zoldyck children,_ please say i did it right.

_heart-stealers. that's what the zoldycks are, what they’re known for. right now, he feels like that's what illumi's done. walked through the uneven riverbed, and plunged his hand into hisoka's chest._

_he doesn't have the words to tell illumi he doesn't think there's a single thing he could do wrong. he doesn't have the words to tell him that he is the most loved person in the world - that hisoka himself will make sure of it, will love him as hard and long as he needs to make up for everyone else, will love him to the stretched capabilities of his heart - his heart is made of rubber - and it will stretch and stretch, as long as it has to. maybe illumi reads it in his eyes, or in his face, on some movement of his lashes, unnaturally attuned as he is, to the most minute feelings and emotions of others, yet wilfully incapable of recognizing them in himself. he opens his mouth to say "you have brothers" to say "you have a father" to say "you have a mother", and their love is of the kind that leaves marks. hisoka has never had either, but he knows they love - are supposed to love. he’s met people with mothers, and fathers, and brothers, and this is what they have all said._

_"i think it's enough for me," illumi says, quiet but resolute. "to be loved by only you."_

_he hums quietly, and nods to himself, as if that settles it._

_hisoka resolves to never stop loving him, as long as he has the capacity to, decides, changeable as he is, not to change this. to try not to change it, at least. as long as he can, as hard as he can._

_“you don’t have to say it back,” he says finally. something in illumi’s delicately rounded shoulders lightens. did i do it right?_

_“i’m not sure i could,” illumi admits. he looks down at the dark water, then back up at hisoka, perfect pearlescent teeth worrying at his bottom lip. “i wouldn’t know what it feels like, to tell you,” he elaborates, not unkindly.  
_oh, sweetheart _, hisoka thinks._

_by the time the helicopter comes to extract them, they’ve cleaned up, and re-dressed. they ride back in a comfortable silence. hidden by the line of their brushing thighs, illumi slips his hand into hisoka’s, long nimble fingers trembling and unsure. hisoka squeezes back, running his thumbs over the knuckles. he hadn’t known what it felt like either._

he doesn’t remember most of his ride back to the manor. there’s a breakfast spread at the table, and he’ll have to do something about it. the butlers don’t have to cook for eight people anymore, and if he smells arsenic in the french press, one more time –

the startling realization that he’s now – for the foreseeable future – the head of the zoldyck household, crashes into him so hard it feels like he’s taken a punch to the diaphragm.

 

sure he’d signed the papers, and gone over assets and houses with the lawyers, but he and killua both were hungover and exhausted, and even he knew that admitting he’d let the fourteen year old he was now legally responsible for loose on the good liquor was not the best of ideas. most of the zoldyck estate was held in trust, for the next heir. technically, he had very little to do – the household ran itself. it had to, seeing as the family was mostly out of the country conducting international assassinations, overthrowing democracies and establishing minor dictatorships in third world countries, and occasionally enacting chaotic coups for the sheer hell of it ( ~~and money. god, so much _dirty, disgusting fucking money,_ that he was now in charge of~~).

 

“hisoka.”

 

killua’s monotone startles him. badly. it shouldn’t but it does. he’s been out of his head – damn near out of his skin – these last few days. sick with anger, with grief, with – with something. he’s not sure what. something though, for sure.

 

he turns to face him. the kid’s wearing a suit, looking appropriately formal, and appropriately hollow for the occasion, not that he ever looks anything but. he really is just another well-raised murder doll like illumi.

 

_“kill’s teenage rebellions are getting tedious,” illumi says, flopping back on the grass in perfect affect of kikyou after a few drinks, and throws a hand over his eyes, completing the picture. he hands the binoculars to hisoka, so he can get the view of killua doing skateboard tricks in the park. it’s three am, there’s no one around._

_“doesn’t everyone go through that phase at some point?” not that hisoka would know. in a way, his entire conscious life is one big teenage rebellion, and he fully knows it._

_“i didn’t,” illumi says, airy and proud. “and neither did milluki. it’s too early to tell for kalluto – “_

_“puberty will hit him like a freight train,” hisoka said, confidently. “he’s too quiet and well-behaved. give it a few years, and he won’t be.”_

_he tilted his chin to killua. “like him.”_

_“don’t you have better things to do on a wednesday than spying on my runaway brother?” illumi asks. his voice has that perfect blankness to it, as usual, but beneath it, he sounds exhausted. killua’s contented himself with sleeping under a bridge for three days running, and thoroughly immersing himself in the homeless experience, before they found him._

_“it’s our date night,” hisoka says flatly, slanting a golden look to illumi. “drag him home, put some ambien in his soda, and we can order chinese and watch tu wong foo. you can drag him home in the morning.”_

_illumi looks, for a moment, considering. “you know i can’t lie to my mother. she’ll be upset i didn’t bring him home immediately.”_

_the long sleeves of his shirt cover the places where hisoka knows his arms are bruised. it rankles him that there’s bruises on illumi’s skin he didn’t put there himself. he doesn’t push. he doesn’t want to force illumi’s hand. they aren’t that sort of couple, who will stand in the rain shouting, “me or them!”_

_and maybe he should have._

 

because if illumi had chosen him, he’d still be here. he blinks slowly, and approximates an expression of well-meaning blankness towards killua.

 

“are you ready?” he asks. he’s not just asking to be nice, because he doesn’t, generally, consider himself to be a nice person. he’s asking because he means it. if killua isn’t ready … well. he still has to go. but he can have a klonopin first.

 

killua nods resolutely, the lines of his face drawn in the same determined blankness illumi had, when he was heading to work.

 

“i have a question, actually,” he begins. his voice doesn’t falter. really, he sounds more like he’s about to make a demand. hisoka wonders if he’s got any hostages to shoot.

 

“shoot,” he says, and picks a croissant off the breakfast spread. he hasn’t had solid food since … probably since the unfortunate spring rolls when detective melody called. four days ago. he bites into the croissant.

 

“canafriendcomewithme,” killua bites out, so quickly it sounds just like a series of garbled consonants. hisoka forced the whole thing in his mouth, swallows carefully with a sip of orange juice that doesn’t smell like it’s been tolerance-training tampered with, and looks down at killua, whose face has rearranged into something comical, between hopeful and combative. hisoka is pretty sure he just heard the word _friend,_ which can’t be right, because zoldycks have no friends.

 

“can _what?”_ he stresses. “i didn’t catch any of that.”

 

“can… a friend come,” killua looks down at the polished noses of his formal shoes.

 

“a friend,” hisoka echoes, his eyes widening.

 

_“you know, actually,” illumi says later on the same wednesday night, after a not-so-triumphant return of killua into the folds of the zoldyck household for the third time this month. he’s sprawled on the floor, his head in hisoka’s lap, only half paying attention to the screen, and mostly focused on tracing patterns over the backs of hisoka’s hands, trying to connect the freckles to each other._

_hisoka hits the pause button. everything illumi has to say is just too important for distraction._

_“hm?”he arches an eyebrow._

_“i lied earlier,” illumi says, pensieve. he lits hisoka’s hand, and hisoka lets him. illumi takes each individual finger and studies the nails, painted in varying shades of teal and candy pink._

_“oh?” hisoka struggles to remember what illumi could have possibly lied to him about._

_“when i said i didn’t have a teenage rebellion. it wasn’t true. i did.”_

_that in itself is a surprise. “did you?”_

_illumi humms, and rolls on his side, so his big dark eyes are focused on hisoka._

_“well, that’s a lie too, really. it’s more of an… early twenties rebellion, if you will.”_

_“is it now?”_

 

_illumi leans towards him, and his lips, for the briefest moment, curl into a smile, when he elaborates, his voice a breathless whisper, “it’s you.”_

“i lied,” killua says, sounding every bit the sullen teenager. “it wasn’t a question.”

 

_and here we go,_ hisoka thinks, _bye bye hostages._

“okay.” hisoka says, which is both assent and an invite to continue, because he is confused, and it’s not, generally, a feeling he enjoys.

 

“my friend’s already here.” killua gets out in a rush. “i told him it was okay. and um. his aunt’s here too.”

hisoka shoves another croissant in his mouth, which is a good enough reason not to talk, because he needs the time chewing it and swallowing it down will take him to think. there are, indeed, two additional presences in the house. he really needs to get back on his game, before whoever did – before someone comes back to finish their unfinished business. he settles on saying another “okay.”

 

killua visibly deflates, like all the fight’s just left his body. it’s impressive in of itself, that he’d been willing to fight – maybe even physically – for it.

 

“i want him to – “ killua pauses. “to help. as pallbearer.”

 

hisoka tilts his head to the side, an annoying habit he’d gotten from illumi, the same birdlike motion, which was not graceful on him, just mocking.

 

“can i at least meet him?”

 

the secret lives of the zoldyck children were all rapidly unravelling for him. milluki and a gaggle of online friends. killua, and this one mysterious friend. he wonders what other secrets will come out, about kalluto, maybe. or about illumi. he’d never had any illusions that illumi kept secrets from him. hisoka was alone in his all or nothing approach to love, and that was alright. he’d been alone most of his life.

 

killua closes his eyes and takes a deep breath like a man getting ready for his own execution.

 

“gon, mito-san, you can come out now.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me about this story on twitter @narcxssus


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the zoldyck funeral is a society affair of the highest caliber. the phantom troupe gather to mourn their youngest member.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO   
> this is the chapter i really wanted to write   
> the next chapter will probs wrap the funeral up with some eulogies and some of that sweet, sweet killua pov!

the weight anchored between them is too much. too much, even for eight people, too much by far. the box is a five feet by two, polished pale rosewood. they’ve made off with bigger cathes in more cumbersome packaging. the meager weight of fifty kilograms is separated evenly between the eight of them, holding on to the cool smooth golden handles. it comes to about six kilograms each, that they never should have had to carry in the first place.

 

uvogin alone could have lifted it, carried the precious cargo in his two arms. hisoka had not allowed a viewing. hisoka said there was nothing much the morticians could do. little kalluto’s jaw is wired shut, and his body is stuffed with chemicals. beneath the rounded heavy lid, there wasn’t much the mortician could do to allow for a viewing.

 

pakunoda grips the handle tighter, and adjusts her hold on it. chrollo is at the front. she looks at his squared back, and the straight line of his shoulders. then on either side of him, uvo and nobunaga. then her, and directly to her right – shizuku, her glasses misted up with unshed tears. behind them feitan and phinks – she can feel feitan’s steady impassive gaze like the weight of something akin to grief on her shoulders. shalnark brings up the rear, and in a star-like formation, kortopi, bono and franklin walk as honorary pallbearars behind them, the entire troupe on show today to send off their youngest member. they are the last part of the procession to enter the temple.

 

ahead of them, walks illumi’s casket, with hisoka and killua, and the last kurta survivor – however hisoka knows him – and what’s presumed to be the last zoldyck’s friends – a tall young man in a suit, and a child of probably the same age, his dark green hair sticking up like celery. machi had joined their part of the procession, to fill up the space of a sixth bearer. she and chrollo had tossed a coin for it, and would switch places, so she could walk kalluto to the zoldyck mausoleum. it was not the sort of coin toss that came out with winners.

 

ahead of hisoka, she knew, various members of the mafia community, including some of the dons, in person, other assassins and the surviving representatives of the zoldyck household staff – and a gaggle of well-dressed ill-looking teenagers, she came to understand were part of milluki zoldyck’s “minecraft server” had walked the rest of the family into the temple so the service could commence.

 

eight of them carrying the box is not enough. it’s heaviest thing she’s ever lifted, and she had done her fair share of heavy lifting in the meteor slums, before chrollo.

 

kalluto had always been a little bird of a child, delicate and nimble, practically hollow boned. like his favored weapons, he too, could disappear with a gust of wind, or otherwise fold in on himself, a paper crane wish of a boy.

 

he was perfect for running the long cons, with those big eyes of his, and a doll-like childishness to his high unbroken voice, a distraction, a lure, the angel fish flashing it’s warning lights at unsuspecting adults who’d trip over themselves to be kind to the pretty child, and wind up with sharp implements sticking out of their throats.

 

the first time she tries to pat him on the shoulder, he flinches away gracefully, and avoids her the rest of the week.

 

now he can’t move anywhere. she wonders what the morticians couldn’t fix, knows she doesn’t want to see. she’s seen children dead before, because the meteor slums were a brutal place that she was a lucky miracle of an survivor from. maybe the curse that had skipped his mother’s generation had gotten him too. then again, kikyou zoldyck hadn’t really made it out of the bloodbath either.

 

pakunoda often wondered if this beautiful, well-dressed waif of a mother – it was easy to see where kalluto got the grace and beauty from - the one that looked like a beloved best doll, adorning a shelf, not to be played with – she often wondered if maybe they had known each other once, dirt-stained, scrape-kneed, half-feral, and digging through heaps of garbage for the salvage.

 

now she was carrying her son to the dais, and the weight of him – all six kilograms and two hundred grams that were allotted to get – was impossible to bear, felt like it might take her entire arm off with it. she studied the lineof uvo’s shoulders, knew that even he was straining with it.

 

the troupe had lost members before, had buried and replaced them – silva zoldyck himself had taken out the previous number eight. hisoka had killed four, and then cheerfully played a theatre of deception for years. they had all _lost_ people. kalluto was young, but he wasn’t younger than they had been when they formed their little pack to protect each other and themselves, when they eventually clawed out of the slums and into the real world, with all its glittering lights, and doors that no longer shut in their faces now that those faces were clean and well-dressed.

 

kalluto had only ever known the inside of those doors. _kikyou would not let her youngest, tiniest, most delicate little one run around dirty and uncouth,_ and yet he flinched from pats on the shoulder, and his face and his bones remained hollow and polite, and paku thought a child like that shouldn’t have to run around like an adult, not like they had, this was different than what they’d had.

 

they ascend the three short steps. she feels the eyes of the congregation on them. today calls a ceasefire. today netero is wearing black, and sending off his old friend, and there will be no arrests made. today hisoka walks, for the first time not as the convicted maniacal murderer he is, but a tragic hero. today there’s children present and one of them is dead.

 

they settle the coffin down. it’s all very tastefully arranged, with heaps of white delicate flowers surrounding each of the eight raised platforms, each of them next to a detailed portrait of the family member. she’d never actually seen maha zoldyck. zeno and his wife share a picture of their wedding day, which is an appropriately long time ago, that they look as young as sliva and kikyou look in theirs.

 

silva zoldyck, who’d gone into the slums for a job, and come out with a child bride, little doll-like kikyou, a whole ten years younger than his brimming twenty-six, and all the rumors that she’d done some sort of – _something –_ magic to get him to marry her, to get him to drag her out.

milluki’s picture shows a plump, smiling young man in a suit. she can guess which technological expo it’s from, because shalnark had been making a case against casing it and _halting progress._

illumi’s picture is from his wedding to hisoka too. he’s not smiling, he never does, but there’s a lightness to his impassive face. hisoka’s been artfully cropped out, but illumi’s looking slightly to the side, presumably where hisoka would have stood next to him.

 

setting kalluto’s casket down doesn’t alleviate the weight she feels. he looks very young in the portrait. it must have been from the wedding too – he’s dressed in a spending furisode, his head inclined to the side, like someone off-camera has asked him a question just before the shutter clicked.

 

she stares at the image, tries to reconcile it with the kalluto she knows, a skittish memory of a child, tries to picture him laid out in the pink silk lining of the casket, like a beloved kitten buries in a shoebox with a string of beads and not much ceremony.

 

she remembers finding him, and the kittens, with the rain pouring down hard in brutal steel-grey shields over the building the spiders were currently using for their nest, and there he was, the earliest hatchling, on his knees in the mud, rain soaking in the silk of his kimono, pretty bright red umbrella discarded in a brownish puddle. she’d only stepped out for a _moment,_ just within the eaves, to smoke. they didn’t smoke inside, chrollo didn’t like the smell, and neither did shalnark, for that matter, or uvo, ever since he’d quit. come think of it, the smokers in their rank were rapidly thinning.

 

so she’s out, staring at the big fat raindrops breaking into the cracked asphalt, delicate explosions just at the nose of her shoes, breathing out soft grey clouds like pale imitations of the lead cotton candy rolling in the sky, bringing down the apocalyptic downpour, and her eyes catch the unfortunate red of the umbrella first, and then the child, kneeling in the wet dirt.

 

she kicks her shoes off, because she knows what mud does to a patent leather pump, and tosses the butt of her cigarette into the puddle, and then runs across the empty muddy lot of earth , gracelessly, with the mud squelching between her toes, and the water soaking into her hair, and her jacket, like the world’s least pleasant shower.   
  
he startles when she nears him, turns around sharply, and lookd, for a moment, every inch the little boy he is, a naughty child caught with small hands in the candy jar, picking spare change out of his dad’s pockets, stealing his mother’s jewelry, before the apathy usually settled over his features clamps down, and the momentary flash of guilt is gone.   
  
“what have you got here, kalluto-chan?” she asks, not unkindly, keeps her voice friendly and calm the way they all have been trying to do lately, around their newest recruit, the way they all, in those secret, hurt parts of themselves, wish someone had done for them.   


he gives her a careful measuring look, blinks those impossibly big eyes, uncertain, and shifts his stance, so she can look behind him. his body is coiled tight, defensive, like he’s readying himself for a fight.   


“i found them,” he says, barely audible over the sound of the rain. “i was gonna… dunno. move them somewhere dry.”

 

there’s four kittens, tiny, still blind. they won’t survive in a downpour like this. she recalls seeing a fat orange tabby around these parts – it must have been their mother. kalluto’s eyes are focused on her, like he expects her, any moment, to do …something.

 

“would you like help?” she asks earnestly. she likes cats – always has. she used to have a few loyal ugly street demons dragging dead mice to her, in the slums, and sometimes a dead mouse roasted on a tinny garbage fire was better than starving.

 

he still looks suspicious, practically radiates it. she’s not sure why trying to move some kittens to a dry spot warrants the kind of guilt that he’d flashed her way. he seems to war with himself, internally. he does that a lot, every time before he opens his mouth to speak in careful measured words. she’d always chalked it to his age. kortopi was the youngest of them all, and he still had a good ten years on the kid, so it made sense for him to be measured, careful, to ensure he was taken seriously. most of the time they didn’t even take each other seriously. hell, sometimes they didn’t even take chrollo seriously, not that any of them would admit it.

 

“sure,” he says, finally, in that very serious adult way of his. “you can help. but you’re not allowed to hurt them.”

 

pakunoda nods solemnly in return, because frankly, it hadn’t even occurred to her that it might be a concern – that she might hurt the kittens – on purpose. she picks up two, and kalluto picks up the other two. they’re so small they fit in the palm of one of her hands, but kalluto needs a hand for each of the squirming mewling babies. they look like the world’s most pathetic fuzzy beans. she bends down and picks kalluto’s red umbrella up in her free hand. it’s useless to them both – they’re absolutely soaked through.

 

“where did you think of moving them?” she asks, as they walk slowly. kalluto seems uncertain, following the footsteps her bare feet leave in the mulch. she’s glad she decided to forego stockings today.   
  
“somewhere dry,” he says, worrying at his bottom lip. “under the eaves in one of the buildings or something… somewhere where their mama can find them.”

 

pakunoda nods thoughtfully. they’re too tiny to make it without the mother, but she’s not sure the orange fatty will be returning any time soon.   
  
“tell you what,” she says, “why don’t we bring them to the supply hangar, and we can put them up in a shoebox under the heater.” they’ll be out of the way there, less likely to get trampled by a careless spider among the dusty boxes of still-uncategorized stolen goods they have to redistribute sometime soon, before they next split. she’s already thinking of a particular empty, cracked flower pot that she used as an ashtray last winter, when it was too cold to smoke outside. if she dusts it out and puts some scraps of fabric in it – machi can donate – it will make a great place for four wet screamy babies.

 

behind her, kalluto stills and stiffens. he pulls his arms closer to his chest, skinny ribs heaving under the heavy fabric of his kimono.

 

“uh-huh,” he says. he doesn’t sound particularly upset. if she’d had to ascribe an emotion to the heaviness in his voice, it would be disappointment. “i know that trick. that is a _dirty_ trick.” he shakes his heads. “i’m just gonna put them somewhere dry. that’s _all._ after that, they’re _not_ my problem.”

 

the stiffness in his shoulders, and the sharp jut of his chin is a little petulant, a little heartbreaking. kalluto stops just within the entrance, and leaves the shivering babies on the doorstep, but well within the dry patch of security afforded by the roof.

 

“just here?” she asks, eyebrows arching.   
  
“how else is their mom supposed to find them?” he snaps. his small back is straight and proper. what a strange child, she’d thought then. for all that he seemed concerned for the kittens. what a strange child.

 

she’d picked the other two babies up, and treaded water on her way to the hangar. the kittens nuzzled peaceful and dry into the old stuffing that lined their new box-home. she’d pushed it right under the heater, so they’d dry quicker. if she saw the red fatty, she’d guide her to her children.

 

no one paid the kittens any mind. paku’s proclivity for anything fluffy, whiny, and vaguely feline was an inherent part of her personality, which is why she was often in charge of nobunaga and machi.  she poked a hole in the lid of a plastic water bottle, so she could feed them milk, and it just became the new normal. she’d pretty much put out of her mind the _way_ she’d come across the impatient, needy beans. kalluto is like that now – blind and without a mother, in an big cold box, lined with scraps.

 

a picture of a zoldyck family member is worth millions. there’s eight of them now, each one more worthless than the next, because these pictures no longer have any meaning. her fingers itch to still something anyway.

 

she’d come into the room with a puree of cream cheese and little bits of fish she’d salvaged from her dinner, to see if they might be persuaded to try their fuzzy little paws at semi-solid food. kalluto was there, on his knees in front of the books, his back straight, head facing forward, locking eyes intently with the heater. his hands were balled into fists, resting on his thighs, like he was meditating. he was a good distance away from the box, and though it wasn’t in movement, it was almost as though, with every fiber of his being, he was straining towards the box. like he wanted to reach for it. she had meant to walk away, to let him settle whatever internal dispute he was having, but he sensed her, turned, alarmed and wide eyed – to the door.

 

in that moment he’d looked so afraid of her, his eyes impossibly big. “i was just looking at them!” he squeaks. “i wasn’t doing anything, i promise!”

 

it seemed important, and so she’d said “i believe you.”

 

the air went out of his small body.  she kneeled beside him, and put the cream cheese down.

 

“what are you doing?” the alarm, still not out of his voice, his eyes torn between studying her, and the little bean babies.

 

“i’m going to feed them,” she spoke slowly, carefully. “i’ve got some cheese, and i’ve got some fish. do you want to stay, and help me see what they like better?”

 

“… it’s just cheese and fish, right,” he studied the bowl she had, like it was personally holding him at gunpoint. “nothing else?”

 

again, the importance of the question evaded her, but she saw no need to lie. “no. just cheese and fish.”

 

he looks suspicious still. “i’m just going to watch you do it,” he says, at last. “if that’s okay.”

 

“you can touch them, if you want,” she says flippantly, while watching with absolute delight as the third one devours a fish head that’s bigger than its entire body. kalluto bolts from the room.

 

on her way down the dais she grabs, lightning fast, a handful of white petals and sticks them in her pocket. the troupe walk to the back of the congregation to take their seats in one straight perfect line, chrollo walking ahead. hisoka and killua are sitting next to each other, alone on their row. hisoka’s hands are clasped in his lap, white-knuckled. his golden eyes are fixated somewhere ahead of him. she tries for eye contact, but he’s simply not seeing her. she’s still sometimes jolted by the knowledge that he’d _married._

 

killua is fidgeting beside him, big blue eyes darting, unsure where in the room to focus. the row behind them is occupied by the strange celery child, and the kurta survivor – seriously, why is he _here_ – and the rest of milluki’s friends. their allocated rows are in the back, behind a row of rough-looking assassins who’ve made the effort to clean up for the occasion. she can’t help but wonder if this is what hisoka and illumi’s wedding would have looked like.

 

kalluto, in his portrait is bathed in golden sunlight, and the angle has ensured his eyes look their appropriate delicate pinky tone, rather than the red camera flashes often make them.

 

she’d gotten the story eventually. abandoned kittens on the zoldyck manor grounds, and a benevolent lie that he’d be allowed to take care of them, because he was so _responsible_ now.

 

“she made me drown them,” he’d said, “in a pail of water. and i had to bury them myself. couldn’t ask the butlers, or anything.”

 

he lifts his skinny shoulders in a graceful shrug. his little hands move automatically over the kitten he’s holding. “illu-nii helped me dig the hole. it was a puppy for him, and he had to feed it arsenic. millu-nii got guinea pigs, not that he cared. kill-nii had a rabbit, i think. but he just let it out in the forest. he _cheated.”_

 

she’s not sure what to say. she hands him the brush she’d swiped, almost on autopilot, from a pet-supply store, so he could run it through the cat’s soft fur. “these cats aren’t pets,” she’d said. “they’re wild cats. when they don’t need us anymore, they’ll go away. so you don’t have to worry about them.”

 

he hadn’t believed her, of course. she grips the hem of her skirt. she hadn’t managed to convince him that it wasn’t all a _mean_ trick to get him to slip up. and though he’d handled the kittens with her, he’d done it, always, with that fearful, skittish expression, waiting for the other shoe to drop. and it had.

 

netero steps to the front. it’s hard to imagine the ways in which this is a personal tragedy for him. the ways in which this is a personal tragedy for every single person in the room, who in some way or another knew the zoldyck family, worked with them, depended on them.

 

she’d have to feed the kittens on her own now.

 

hisoka’s shifted in his seat to clasp one pale hand on killua’s shoulder, either comfort, or holding him in place to keep him from making a scene.

 

he’d accosted chrollo, right before the line of black cars left towards the temple – to warn him to behave himself.

 

“i’d talk to kurapika, but i am not taking my chances. one of you is not an impulsive dumb nineteen year old, so that’s the person whose sense of common decency and good manners i’m taking my chances appealing to,” he looked exhausted, and though his smug smile was still right where it belonged, there was no real heat behind it. if chrollo agreed to grant hisoka’s constant desire for a 1v1, this would perhaps be, the only day where he’d win, and hisoka would let him.

 

netero drones on and on about loyalty, family values, and children. she’s pretty sure hisoka mentioned the list of eulogies, and asked if any of them would want to say something about kalluto. he was cutting his losses and removing anyone talking about kikyou from the program, like the vindictive, petty circus act he was, not that anyone could blame him.

 

part of her had wanted to put her hand up to go up there, and say something about this mirage of a child, and the kittens he’d guarded jealously, even when he couldn’t bring himself to touch them, the clean separation he made that they were _paku-san’s kittens,_ too afraid to taint them with his own sordid history.

when netero is done, hisoka is the one who walks up. he looks very put-together in his black suit, his crimson hair combed back. he’s put makeup over his prison tattoos.

 

she wants to listen to what he has to say. she knows it’s important. but she _can’t._

she’s already shoved her way to the end of the row past the troupe, when the first sob breaks. uvo stands up with her, puts one large heavy arm around her shoulders and walks her outside. hisoka has stilled to silence. her heels are the loudest noise in the room. her heartbeat is. the sound of her crying.

 

she wishes, desperately, she was treading barefoot through the mud, teaching a child how to love a kitten he wouldn’t have to kill. the sun is big and bright in the sky, and she doesn’t _fucking_ want to look at it.

 

uvo grabs her, stills her, and she cries in the broad expanse of his chest, while he smooths a hand down her back. well. there goes their promise to hisoka not to make a scene.

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

killua tunes hisoka out when he speaks. he catches a few words. _love. family. devotion. forever._ he doesn’t want to hear it. he can’t bear to hear it. then hisoka descends the stairs, and sits next to him again. he’s  warm and solid. a part of killua wants, helplessly, to shift closer to him and demand a hug. he’s never wanted a hug so badly before, but _hisoka is the only one left._  
  
one of milluki’s friends goes up, and speaks some nonsense. something, something _friendship that transcended physicality,_ something, something.

 

his family is dead. the sum of them equates to the boxes on the raised platform. one of the dons – Nostradamus Something – goes up, and speaks about his father. he even shoehorns a mention of his mother in, even though hisoka had explicitly warned against it. hisoka didn’t want his mother’s name mentioned ever again. killua couldn’t help but agree. killua didn’t want her name mentioned again either. he didn’t want any of their names mentioned. kurapika had said he knew the feeling. that killua could talk to him. kurapika had no fucking clue what he was on about, because his family had been _happy_ once.

 

killua doesn’t think his family had ever been happy. they had, each of them, only been content on their own, in blissful separation – milluki with his computers, kalluto, with the troupe, zeno – on jobs, maha and grandmother – in their respective wings of the house, never to be seen outside meal times, killua himself – hiding in the warm laughter that reigned supreme in the freeccs home, and illumi… well, he’d been happy with hisoka, hadn’t he?

 

hisoka is looking to the side, at illumi’s coffin, and the portrait photograph of illumi, in his beautiful white suit, at their wedding day. he’s not smiling, but he looks content. he’d been lighter, that day, than any other time killua had seen him. lighter, in the weeks leading up to the wedding, than ever before, even with hisoka’s impending trial.

 

the wedding was just-in-case. if the trial didn’t go their way. illumi had wanted it simple, so of course, suddenly, mother demanded a massive affair for eight hundred, in a rented out castle, with a church ceremony in a cathedral. thank god grandpa zeno had put his foot down, and capped the guests at two hundred.

 

killua had been mostly ambivalent, about the wedding. he didn’t dislike hisoka. he didn’t really care. illumi’s marriage was nothing but a garish show of betrayal and hypocrisy that killua would enjoy reminding him of for the rest of their lives.

 

‘you’re not allowed to have friends this, you should only care about the family that, but let me go ahead and marry a killer clown. magician. whatever.’

 

god, it had made him so _angry._

 

when illumi broke the news – that he was moving out, that he had a _lover, partner, **fiancé.**_ well, mother had screeched loud enough to shatter glass, and illumi had taken the verbal and physical lashing with the same calm stoicism he applied to every other aspect of his life, all killua could do was stare down at his dinner plate, and see his own reflecting staring back at him from the polished cutlery. he’d chanced a look around the table – at kalluto’s wide eyes, the _betrayal_ on his pretty little face, and then to his other side, where milluki simply finished his wine in one long gulp, wiped his mouth with the linen napkin, and left the table, calm as you please, his shoulders tight with tension, his big hands shaking. then he looked to the opposite side of the table. maha and grandmother were exchanging money, like this was some long term bet, and zeno was looking amused, eating, as if the world wasn’t ending around him, and killua had known then, that if anything, his grandfather had already known – deduced, or been warned by illumi. and at the head of the table, his fathed looked quietly resigned, and let his mother rage.

 

killua looked back at his empty plate again, then back to his side at kalluto. the betrayal had been replaced with resolve. killua wasn’t particularly close to his youngest sibling, but for a while now, something about kalluto had been off. something that had distracted him enough not to realize what illumi was planning. and whatever it was, kalluto had clearly made up his mind. killua knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that kalluto was leaving too.

 

and illumi – illumi had simply planted himself, firm and unmoving, and let his mother rage, and when his eyes met killua’s, there was no apology there.

 

then they’d sat back down. mother’s makeup was running down her face, her pretty hands trembling. illumi changed his main course for the soup, so he wouldn’t have to chew, bruised, a solid chunk of his hair missing. killua picked up his form mechanically, when canary put down his plate of coronation chicken.

 

beside him, kalluto set his cutlery with a clatter on the table, pushed his chair away, and left. the next time they saw him, nearly a week later, there was a delicate spider tattooed over the mole on his cheek, bearing a pretty little number four in the middle.

_“traitors, the lot of them,”_ milluki had said, and it was the one time killua agreed.

 

he’d gone up into illumi’s rooms that evening. illumi was humming to himself, and packing his clothes and weapons into his limited edition matching louis Vuitton luggage, moving between his walk in, and the suitcases open on his bed. the lamps had been dimmed ot a soft ambient light.

 

“you can’t leave,” killua said, plainly.   
  
illumi stopped. he had a pile of winter sweaters in his hands. his hair was braided back and held into a loose bun with a mechanical pencil. he looked relaxed and easy, in his overly large drag-queen merch t-shirt, and worn, threadbare skinny jeans. killua missed this illumi the most, from their childhood. wanted ot hug him, and knew he’d get smacked for it if he tried.

 

“why is that?” he’d asked, wide eyed, genuinely confused. but illumi was never confused. he was vapid, and shallow, and now – killua knew – selfish, but it was all a mask. a pretty arihead didn’t warrant second looks. killua knew better, so he waited, and it came. “after all, you do it all the time?”

there, beneath the sweet confusion, was the venom killua knew well. there was the poisoned chocolate fed to him after dinner.

 

“i always come back! you can’t leave me here with them!” killua had snarled, felt so angry he could cry, even actually stomped his foot on the ground, though the last time he’d done it, he’d been in crutches for weeks.

 

illumi had walked back to his suitcases, and was carefully arranging his sweaters over his jewelry box that hid the needles.

 

he tossed killua a blank look over his shoulder. “so will i. i’ll be around all the time – for jobs and such.”

 

he walks into his adjoining bathroom, to start packing his toiletries. oils for his hair in beautiful bottles, and creams for his hands. he’s just like mother, in that regard.

 

killua follows after him, breathing in the fruity, dessert-like scent of illumi’s favored products. he catches his brother’s impassive, bruised eyes in the mirror.   
  
“take me with you,” he repeats. “please, illu-nii! please!”

 

he even uses the old childhood nickname, makes his eyes big and round, feels so, so close to unravelling, doesn’t care that he’ll catch a beating for crying, illumi can’t just leave him here, it’s not fair, he can’t leave and abandoned killua to this life, when he knows what it’s like –

 

illumi turns to face him. his forearms are tightly bandaged, where mother’s nails broke skin and scratched him so deep that it will surely scar.

 

“why should i?” he asks, in that breathless, airy voice of his. killua’s heart stops, in that moment. in that realization. this, he understands – this is illumi’s revenge. because no matter what he says, no matter how he acts like, now he sees the truth of it. that illumi – gentle, calm, sweet even when he was cruel – never forgave him. that all these years, illumi had been _angry._ because killua was heir. because they – the adults, the parents, the grandparents – made him give _everything_ up, and then decided he wasn’t good enough anyway. the family had turned their back on illumi, and illumi was taking his revenge now, by turning his back on killua.

 

he holds the pastel leather case with his hair products and walks out of the bathroom, humming.

 

“it’s not my fault –“ killua cries out after him, desperate. the tears come, unbidden. “you know it isn’t, you know i don’t even want it – “

 

the slap comes unbidden. one moment illumi is in his bedroom, the next, he’s right in front of killua, backhanding him so hard, he sends him on the floor. his brain rattles in his skull. he reaches for the side of his head, and his fingers come out bloody.   
  
“don’t ever say that again,” illumi admonishes quietly. he doesn’t even look angry. he continues packing his stuff. _angry,_ not because he was passed over, but because killua _got it and didn’t even want it._

 

“you’ve got a concussion,” illumi says. “get one of the butlers to wake you up through the night.”

 

killua picks himself up, shaky. illumi walks aroung the room, picking his things up, cleaning his presence from the house meticulously. he doesn’t give killua a backwards glance, when killua walks away. the knowledge that illumi had never forgive him – that he was incapable of forgiving him – the blatant simple confirmation of it… killua would never forgive him in return.

 

he’d walked into milluki’s room. milluki was shouting in his mic in a foreign language, coordingating some multiplayer strategy or other. he didn’t even flinch at the blood matting killua’s hair. he muted his mic with an annoyed, practiced gesture.

 

“what?”

 

“will you be up late?”

 

“yeah, why?”

 

“can you wake me up every two hours? illumi concussed me.”

 

milluki huffed, annoyed, rolled his eyes.

 

“serves you right,” he snapped. then, as an afterthought. “don’t get blood on my waifu, or my waifu’s waifu.”

 

killua removed the body pillows from the bed, and laid them next to each other on the floor. one of them was a pretty blonde in a maid costume, the other one – a redhead in glasses. he flopped on top of illumi’s covers, and curled up around one of his oval, vaguely cartoon-character shaped cushions. that night everything had hurt so bad.

 

when kalluto packed himself away in the same soft, quiet manner as illumi, and disappeared into the nether on a months-long job with the phantom troupe, killua had resolved to do the only thing he could. trailing milluki on his rare outings from the house. simply put, milluki could no longer be trusted to have the family’s best interest at heart. and if milluki left too… then killua would _never_ get out. it simply couldn’t be allowed.

 

that’s how he’d ended up trailing his brother to a cake shop in one of the nicer, recently-gentrified neighborhoods, where – and he couldn’t believe his eyes- illumi was sitting. sure, illumi had been around the house – true to his words, still taking jobs, still driving them to school -but this… it was weird, plain weird, seeing him in public, dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt. he actually, honest to god smiled when he saw milluki. from the shop window, killua could just about read their lips.   
  
“so i may have lied to you,” illumi begins, which – big surprise!, “hisoka didn’t actually ditch me. we’re pretty set on what cake we want for the wedding.”

 

milluki’s frown mirrors killua’s own emotions pretty closely.

 

“feel free to taste everything the shop has to offer though,” illumi continues, “we’re still not fully decided on the mini-desserts for the desert table.”

 

that seems to mollify milluki. of course, piggy would do anything for food.

 

“i actually called you here, because i wanted to ask you a favor,” illumi continues, while milluki’s mouth is conveniently full of what looks like ganache. he swallows painfully. killua can imagine the sound.

 

“i want you to be my best man,” illumi says. “at the wedding.”

 

milluki sputters and chokes. killua closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath. he turns his back to the shop window. he doesn’t want to turn around. he’d walked away. walked right to gon’s house. betrayal sat heavy in his stomach, and he couldn’t quite figure out why.

 

illumi had walked away. illumi had _abandoned_ them. and now he’d done it again. he’d abandoned killua again. he feels hisoka’s hand on his shoulder, heavy. oh. the eulogies must be over. he stands up, mechanically. he and hisoka walk to the casket. the pallbearers line up, again.

 

this time, chrollo lucifer is right behind him, which puts him right next to kurapika. he wonders if they’ll make a scene. maybe if they do, he can be distracted from what’s happened.

 

he hears chrollo draw in breath to speak. kurapika’s hiss-whisper of “don’t.”

 

no scene then. they walk to the mausoleum. killua moves because he’s supposed to. the casket isn’t that heavy. hisoka hadn’t let him see the bodies, like he thought killua had never seen a dead body before. like he wanted to protect him. no one had ever wanted to protect him. illumi had never wanted to protect him. otherwise he wouldn’t have left.

 

he’s been to the family crypt before. mother took such pride in it. in the idea that one day she’d lay in it. she didn’t know her own family. everyone she’d ever known before father married her, had died and rotted in a common grave, or the side of the street, or been sold for parts on the black market.

 

she surely hadn’t planned on being laid in it quite so soon. in a final act of pettiness, hisoka has her right beneath grandmother. it had been killua’s idea. it’s what she got, for driving illumi away. it’s what she got for making him stay. it’s what she got- 

 

he watches the workers seal the openings with the metal first. hisoka shakes hands with people, talks to them in hushed voices. reassures them that all outstanding contracts will be completed. that all discounts are still applicable. that of course, he will continue taking jobs. that’s ready to work again. makes a few quiet, cold jokes about not getting rusty in prison.

 

killua can’t stand it. he walks out, and sits heavy on the crypt steps. gon joins him. mito-san is quiet, appropriately subdued. she doesn’t try to talk to him, but mills about. she looks nice in her simple black dress. very _proper._ killua likes that. she always looks _just right._ gon puts an arm around his shoulders loosely. for once, he isn’t speaking either. leorio and kurapika join them outside, kurapika’s eyes hard, narrowed. he’s got as much right to be here as the spiders, but today the spiders have lost a member, and it wasn’t by kurapika’s hand, and that burns him, killua knows. knows just as well, the relief – because it kurapika had killed kalluto… well. killua would have _had_ to kill him. and gon couldn’t have forgiven that. so it had worked out. a little. no one tries to talk to him. he realizes, maybe that’s why they’re all outside, surrounding him. to make sure no one does. he watches everyone leaving in their black suits.

 

the butlers leave last, in a neat, diminished line.

 

“hisoka-sama said to drive you back home, killua-sama…” tsubone trails off.

 

killua stands up and dusts himself off. his tongue feels like sandpaper in his mouth. “how’s he getting back, then?”

 

“he said he’ll walk,” tsubone doesn’t sound happy about it. it’s improper. god forbid a zoldyck ever use their own legs to walk anywhere. and hisoka was a zoldyck now, wasn’t he? by marriage, by association, by guardianship…

 

“okay.” he says. hisoka can do whatever he wants. “they’re coming,” he gestures to the meager gathering of friends he is now free to bring into his house whenever he pleases.

 

“of course, killua-sama,” tsubone says.

 

he chances a look into the crypt. hisoka is stanging in front of illumi’s casket, his hands deep in his pockets. his back is straight. his black suit and red hair make him look like a death omen. gon tugs his hand. he follows gon to the limo.

_hisoka is like a particularly persistent stray cat_ , illumi had said once. _he always makes his way home_.

 

 _or like a zoldyck,_ killua had thought, uncharitably. it had been funny then. a lot of things had been. a lot of things weren’t funny now.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hisoka and killua's new normal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm super unhappy with this chapte,r i literally hate it so much, but i just wanted to update idk

the house is quiet around him. there’s a crack where his curtains have been unevenly drawn, and moonlight pools on the thick cream carpet of his room. he can’t sleep. he stares up at his ceiling, adorned with astronomically correct placements of stars, the gold paint infused with fluorescent particles.

 

his family is dead, and he can’t sleep. the clock on his bedside cabinet reads 3:17 in the morning. he has school tomorrow. he needs to be awake at 6:35, so hisoka can drive him in his maserati. in illumi’s maserati that is now hisoka’s, because illumi is dead.

 

hisoka told him he could take the week off school. or the month, even. but what would killua do? stay around the house? pace the rooms where his family had been killed, aware of the gaps in the interior that had been taken into evidence? because that’s all hisoka _would_ let him do.

 

killua wanted _revenge._ and of all times to pick to pretend he was a functioning adult, this was the one time hisoka _did_ pick. the time, when killua needed him on his side. he’d planted himself firmly down, and looked at killua for the first time like he really thought killua was just a stupid useless child, and told him there would be no _hunt,_ no _job,_ and killua could either take a break from school to stay at home, or keep going to school, but there was no universe, in which he was actually going after the people that had done what they had done to his family, and killua had been… furious.

 

he was a goddamn zoldyck- the _last_ goddamn zoldyck, and he wasn’t about to let a relative stranger order him in his own house, not when he couldn’t even be bothered to figure out who killed his own husband, not when he would rather let illumi’s death stay bloodless and unavenged so he could pretend to himself like he was doing the right thing and –

 

and hisoka had slapped him. actually, honest to god smacked him across his face.

 

it wasn’t a hard slap. killua knew hisoka could do better. it wasn’t a punishment, so much as a warning.

 

“don’t think i’m above hitting you, just because you’re a kid,” hisoka said savagely. “you crossed a line. that was a very unkind thing to say. i won’t ask you to apologize, because you won’t mean it, but tell me, do you honestly believe illumi would be _proud_ of me if i let you go on some half-cocked revenge mission with none of the details, none of the information, after people who were skilled enough to take out every single other member of your family? what hope do _you_ stand against someone like that, do you think?”  


“kurapika – “

 

hisoka narrowed his eyes. “well, if there was ever a chance to convince me, you blew it by bringing him up as an example. you can either go to school tomorrow, or stay here with tsubone, that’s all.”

 

killua hissed “sellout” under his breath, and stomped off.

 

and now the house is quiet around him, and it’s three in the morning, and he can’t sleep, and tomorrow everyone will know what happened. everyone will know he is an orphan, and his brothers are all dead, and his guardian is a man everyone knows is a criminal, and no one can prove it.

 

he would stay home, if only he could spend the time with gon, but gon needs to be at school, because of the scholarship, so killua will go to school, because being around gon is the only time he feels like he’s actually alive anymore, especially now, when he’s pretty sure his heart was entombed in that cold white stone with his mother.

 

he’d listened to the sound of hisoka speaking to the butlers, but hadn’t bothered to make out any of it. he’d listened to them walking up and then, but it was all quiet now.

 

he couldn’t hear the faint sound of milluki speaking in his headset, the heavy steps of his father going to eat cold leftovers by the fridge at two am after going over jobs with zeno, the sound of maha and grandmother putting on the late shipping broadcast on in the radio, which is what they always did before bed, and zeno quietly laughing on the phone with netero, like he thought no one knew about them, like he didn’t care. only illumi had been quiet, like a ghost, even before he left. sometimes, it was easy to forget he’d ever been there to begin with, a brother and a magic trick in one – here one day, and gone the next, like a wish. even kalluto had made more noise than him.

 

but now there is nothing. he wonders if hisoka went back to the penthouse. wonders if he’ll keep doing the commute, instead of just doing the normal person thing and moving in. they hadn’t really talked about that. killua hopes hisoka doesn’t ask him to move into the penthouse. he’s never been. he doesn’t want to see it. he doesn’t want to know what kind of life illumi had had there. doesn’t want to see the proof that illumi had walked away and been happy while killu bit his tongue day in and day out.

 

he can’t stand being in bed anymore. he hops off, silently, and opens his door. he realizes what all the walking he heard must have been about. down the hall, the main corridor to the left wing of the house has been sealed shut, the double doors that had never once in his life been closed, heavy, drawn together, and presumeably locked. the left wing was where his grandparents’ apartments were. the ballroom too, though the last time it was used was the wedding. hisoka had ordered it shut. it made sense, really.

 

he padded down the stairs carefully. the downstairs is quiet, cast in darkness all the same. the glass doors to the living room are shut. there’s a single light on in the kitchen. he finally notices hisoka when he makes a move to cross the foyer. he’d dragged one of the dining room chairs, sitting with his back to the house, facing the door, arranging one of his castles of cards on the  ivory table where the butlers usually put the mail, and fresh flowers for mother.

 

hisoka doesn’t seem to notice him, alternating between casting glances at the door, and at his handiwork, waiting.

 

killua goes back to bed.

he sleeps fitfully, and dreams of illumi. he wakes up before his alarm, and his pillow is wet.

 

in the kitchen, there is sunlight, bright and warm. hisoka is wearing sweatpants, and a glitter croptop, and his hair is down, face bereft of his usual carefully applied makeup. he’s wearing gucci slides from the limited design, with the pigs on them. it smells like pancakes and bacon.

 

“where’s tsubone?” killua asks.

 

hisoka shrugs his broad shoulders, and hums, as he expertly flips a pancake. it’s only a little impressive.

 

“the staff will not be coming in anymore,” hisoka says simply. “i didn’t fire them,” he adds, just as killua reaches for his butter knife. it won’t do much fatal damage, but it will still hurt. “i’m having all the locks in the house changed today. the staff will be on a permanent paid vacation until i figure out what happened.”

 

“who’s going to clean?” killua asked, before he could catch himself on the fact that hisoka _did_ apparently intend on investigating the murders. just… without him.

 

the magician raises one slender red eyebrow. “you’ve heard of a vacuum cleaner, right?”

 

“what about _laundry?_ and _cooking!”_  
  


hisoka was just looking at him, as though his face couldn’t decide between amusement and exasperation, but it _wasn’t_ funny! the butlers _ran_ the life in the zoldyck household. tsubone knew when _all_ his schoolwork was due!

 

“there’s a laudry machine next to the torture room in the basement, on the left hand side of the corridor with the wine cellar,” hisoka said primly. “and _obviously,_ i’ll be doing the cooking. illu-chan and i were perfectly fine without servants – “ he stops mid-sentence, his golden eyes glazing over.

 

killua can almost imagine his thought process. the vivid techinolor of memories of his life with illumi that he can’t have anymore. he can almost imagine it. hisoka, making breakfast like this. the two of them… what? cleaning together? one of them vacuuming, the other dusting? did illu-nii have to clean the bathroom? killua can’t imagine it.  
  
“well, anyway,” hisoka sets the plate of pancakes down in front of him, next to a bottle of maple syrup. “like i said, we’ll be just fine.”

 

killua takes a bite. the pancakes are… okay. fluffy, a little sweeter than he’s used to. hisoka probably puts sugar in the batter.

 

“so you’re going to be looking into it then?” he asks after a painful swallow. all hisoka has in front of him is a mug of coffee, and he’s looking at his phone.

 

“i never said i wasn’t going to,” he says flatly.

 

killua shovels more pancakes in his mouth to avoid having to respond.

 

he finishes his breakfast by the time hisoka returns from upstairs in a deep maroon suit, his hair carefully gelled black, and makeup pristine.  
  
“what time do you finish today?” he asks. he’s smiling, but it’s off. all of him is off. distracted. less full of the energy killua remembers him having.

 

“i take the bus home with gon.”

 

“you don’t anymore,” hisoka says sharply. his golden earrings glint in the morning sun as he climbs into the car. killua takes the passenger seat. he always sat in the back when canary was driving, because that was appropriate. “i can pick you and gon both up. i’ll need you to give me gon’s number, and his aunt’s number too.”

 

“what for?” killua finds the energy for indignation. for the longest time, gon had been his biggest secret. his safest place, where he could hide, and no one had to know where he was.

 

“so if you disappear, i’ll know where you are, and not have to put the whole city on lock down trying to find you. so if gon disappears, his aunt won’t have to call the cops wondering where he is, because you two dumb twelve year olds, decided to stake out chrollo’s warehouses again, which yes – he told me all about.”

 

killua bristled, trying to sink back into the seat. chrollo was a fucking snitch.

 

“you know, for someone who was all high and mighty yesterday,” hisoka began, “you’re really taking this less serious than i thought. but let me put it bluntly for you.”

 

killua hardly thought hisoka had ever been anything but blunt in his life. the pretty way he had of speaking didn’t mean anything, when the things he said were often mean.

 

“this isn’t a job, like the shit your mother had you do on schooltrips to europe. this is someone declaring _war_ on you, and if they decide to come back, do you think they’ll balk at hurting gon, or his family to get to you? kalluto was ten, killua. exercise your training to think about that.”

 

he turns his eyes back on the road. he doesn’t drive like a maniac, but he’s not a careful driver either. killua watches the cars disappear in colorful blots. he doesn’t feel like crying, not in his eyes. but in his chest he does. he wants to cry. he wants to tell hisoka to stop being cruel, but how can he say that, when hisoka is just being honest.

 

killua knows there are bad people in the world. he has killed some of them. he is one of them. his family used to be the bad people other bad people feared. and now they aren’t. now he knows there is someone badder out there. maybe he should have taken the day of school. he wonders if hisoka is thinking of illumi.

 

kalluto stopped going to school, and completed all his forms online, in between doing jobs with the troupe. kalluto is dead.

 

mother insisted that killua keep going to school, because he would be the public face of the family. mother hadn’t known how to read until she met his father, and he taught her. they too, are now dead. he has to remind himself over and over again, before he forgets, and hurts himself on the realization.

 

hisoka parks in front of the school gate. killua wishes he knew the secret to his serene expression, but he knows hisoka is one of the bad people too. he wonders if hisoka has ever killed children. he imagines him in dirty torn clothes, putting his hand over a child’s mouth and holding it there, until the child stops moving, because it’s easier than frostbite or starvation. he imagines him as he is now, stealing into one of the many houses of the rich bad people with his cards, and his knives, quietly slitting someone’s quiet throat, and wonders which is better. hisoka is like his mother, coming from those parts in the world, where you’re either a bad person, or a dead one.

 

hisoka is alive. his mother isn’t.

 

“what time did you say you finish?”

 

killua hadn’t said. “five.”

 

hisoka nods. “okay. i’ll be here.”

 

killua nods. “okay.”

 

“do you have money for – “

 

“yes.”

 

“okay.”

 

he has to go. he can’t move. he has to undo his seatbelt, open the door, and go to class. he can’t move.

 

hisoka isn’t looking at him.

 

killua can’t move. he wants to move. he opens his mouth to say it. he has to say “i can’t move.”

 

hisoka opens his mouth. killua’s teeth shut with an audible click.

 

“when i find out something, you’ll be the first to know,” hisoka says. killua undoes his seatbelt.

 

“but you won’t let me come with you.” he says.  
  
“no.”

 

killua wants to be angry, but he’s too busy focusing on his newly regained ability to move.

 

instead he says “that’s fair.” when he opens the door.

 

hisoka’s car doesn’t peel off from the parking lot until killua disappears within the gates of the school property, and the barrier to let students and teachers in lowers.

 

 


End file.
